Stanford University

Gender

Gender Imbalance in China: A Cautionary Tale of Land Reform, Income, and Sex Ratios

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Venue Changed to the Philippines Conference Room
 
This paper examines the effect of income growth induced by 1978–84 land reform on the
sex ratio imbalance in China. Using variation in reform timing by county together with the
absence of sex selection among first-born child, we compare the sex of the second child between families with a first girl and those with a first boy before and after the reform. Results show that following a first daughter, the second child is 5.5 percent more likely to be a boy after landreform. Better educated parents are substantially more likely to respond with sex selection. After assessing various potential channels, our evidence is most consistent with an effect of increased household income.
 
Shuang Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at SIEPR. She received her PhD from Cornell University in 2012 and will start as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder after one year at SIEPR. Her primary interests are development, health and education. Her current work focuses on various reforms and health outcomes in China.
 

Philippines Conference Room

Shuang Zhang Postdoctoral Fellow, SIEPR Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

Adi Greif

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C139
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Adi Greif is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University and a pre-doc at CDDRL from 2013-2015. Her dissertation, "The Long-Term Impact of Colonization on Gender", investigates why gender equality varies by former colonizer (French or British) in the Middle East and globally. It uses cross-national statistics, a regression discontinuity across the former colonial border in Cameroon, and interviews from Egypt and Jordan. Her research abroad was supported by a Macmillan Dissertation Fellowship.

Adi's research interests are colonialism, international alliances, state formation and comparative gender policies with focus on the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. She has lived in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, and visited Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. Adi holds an M.A. in Political Science from (Yale University) and a B.A with honors in Political Science and a minor in Math (Stanford University). Before coming to Yale, she worked at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. through the Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy.

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2015; CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellow, 2013-2014

International Public Interest Initiative Symposium

This two-day symposium will bring together lawyers who are litigating human rights cases in international tribunals, lawyers who deploying international human rights frameworks to advance legal reform goals in their respective countries and public policy advocates who are pressing for legal reforms that are more protective of individual rights

This year’s symposium will focus, as a case study, on achieving gender equality through strategic use of both international and domestic strategies.

Goals:

  1. To learn about successes with respect to using international human rights mechanisms to mobilize domestic law reform
  2. To evaluate the extent to which international human rights mechanisms have had an impact on justice on the ground
  3. To strategize on how human rights litigators, domestic public interest attorneys and domestic public policy advocates can more effectively coordinate their work  in order to impact justice on the ground  through international human rights mechanisms
  4. To examine in-depth how the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and monitoring mechanisms are shaped by local activists and how local activists use the international documents and mechanisms to press for change on the ground.
  5. To examine the impact of local norms and practices on whether a global consensus is reached on international human rights standards and whether the standards are adopted in a domestic context

Content:

Panels will address :

  1. What is the power of human rights ideas for transnational and local social movements and how have these ideas contributed to a rethinking of gender equality around the world?
  2. Using gender equality and CEDAW as a case study, have human rights created a political space for reform in particular countries and what have been the key challenges?
  3. What key successes have lawyers and advocates had in using international human rights mechanisms to ensure gender equality with respect to organizing, litigation and public policy? 
  4. What are the lessons learned from the global gender equality movement for other human rights struggles?
  5. Looking forward, what are the key challenges and opportunities for more strategic collaboration between the movement for gender equality and other aspects of  the human rights movement?

Keynotes will include Christopher Stone, the President of Open Society Foundation and The Honorable Judge Patricia Wald. Panelists are Executive Directors or Presidents of innovative human rights and international justice organizations and public interest attorneys from leading public interest legal organizations in Kenya, Nigeria, China,
South Africa, Malaysia, Palestinian Territories, China and Chile.

The Program on Human Rights at CDDRL is proud to co-sponsor this event
and hopes you take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

For registration details, please visit:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/law/forms/LevinPILSymposium.fb

Download pdf
Download pdf

Stanford Law School

Symposiums

Global Dynamics of Culturalized Conflict in Southeast Asia: Postcards from Eurabia

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In popular discourse, variations on Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis have cited cultural differences to explain conflicts ranging from Hindu-Muslim violence in India to the Rwandan genocide. Few scholars take these accounts seriously. Culture differences are multiple and ubiquitous. Were they sufficient causes of conflict, the world would have undergone far more inter-group violence than has in fact occurred. Social scientists have instead focused on a far wider range of reasons, including skewed distributions of material resources and the political mobilization of group identities by rival elites.

Yet those who are involved in or affected by such conflicts often describe or explain them in cultural terms, and this affects how the conflicts evolve. The empirical divisions expressed by a supposedly “ethnic” conflict can also change, as can the material issues involved, such that whatever first led to the conflict may no longer be relevant. In this process, global and local fears and narratives can intersect. Drawing on quantitative evidence and case studies from Southeast Asia, Graham K. Brown will explore how and why these shifts occur.

Graham K. Brown directs the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. He has held research positions with Oxford University, and with the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia. His many publications include a chapter on Malaysia in The Political Function of Education in Deeply Divided Societies (2011). His current work focuses on the interactions between inequality, identity, and security, with particular reference to Southeast Asia.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Graham Brown

Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
616 Serra St., Encina Hall E310
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 625-9623 (650) 723-6530
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Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
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Graham K. Brown directs the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. He has held research positions with Oxford University, and with the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia. His many publications include a chapter on Malaysia in The Political Function of Education in Deeply Divided Societies (2011). His current work focuses on the interactions between inequality, identity, and security, with particular reference to Southeast Asia.

Graham Brown 2012 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow Speaker Stanford University
Seminars
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